by Iliffe, Glyn
‘Do you think Neoptolemus will be a replacement for Achilles?’ she asked. ‘Do Odysseus and Diomedes really believe that?’
‘We do. He has his father’s blood in him, after all.’
‘But he is not Achilles. You will know that when you see him tonight. He can’t do the things his father failed to do! So why are you here? Why leave the war in Troy for the sake of one man?’
Eperitus stood.
‘It’s not my place to say, my lady. Odysseus and Diomedes were charged with this mission, not me. If you had hoped to trick me –’
‘Of course not,’ she said, her tone conciliatory. She took him by the elbow and encouraged him to retake his seat. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, Eperitus. I’m just a mother worried for her son. You must have children of your own.’
‘A daughter.’
‘Then don’t you miss her?’
‘She died before the war.’
Deidameia faced him and laid her hand on his forearm. Her eyes were full of compassion.
‘How old was she?’
‘She was nine. The truth is I hardly knew her. I slept with her mother in Sparta ten years before, but I didn’t learn she’d given birth to my daughter until a short while before she died.’
‘And how did she die?’
Deidameia’s voice was soft now. Eperitus looked down at her slim, long-fingered hand on his arm, felt the hotness of her skin against his, and wondered whether he should answer. Whether he could answer. Then he felt the old anger rising as he thought of his daughter’s murder and his own inability to save her.
‘She was sacrificed to appease the gods. King Agamemnon murdered her so that his fleet could sail in safety to Ilium.’
Deidameia’s eyes narrowed in confusion.
‘But that was his own daughter, Iphigenia, born of Clytaemnestra. Everyone knows the story.’
‘They know some, but not all. Clytaemnestra was my lover in Sparta and Iphigenia was my daughter. I tried to stop Agamemnon, but –’ He stood again and stepped away from the bench. ‘I must go. Odysseus will be wondering where I am.’
‘Tell me why they want my son, Eperitus. As a father yourself –’
‘I sympathise with you, Deidameia, I do, but that’s for Odysseus to say, not me. He’ll tell you why we’re here tonight. And as for your son, he’s not a boy any more; he’s old enough to be a warrior now, like his father before him. And part of him will want to follow Achilles. You say you have faith in him, that you know him, but you don’t. How can a woman really know what’s in a man’s heart? A man lives under the shadow of his father, for good or bad, and at some point he wants to be free of it and live his own life. How Neoptolemus does that is up to him, not you.’
He held her gaze for a moment, then turned and left.
The sun had set and the first stars were beginning to prick the deep blue of the evening sky outside when torch-bearing slaves came to their quarters with a summons to the promised feast. Without armour or weapons, Odysseus, Diomedes and Eperitus followed the slaves through the palace to the copper gates, where they were awaited by Polites, Eurybates and Omeros who had come on Odysseus’s orders. Polites held a great wooden chest on his shoulder, making light of the burden, while Eurybates wore Achilles’s shield on his arm, its splendour hidden behind a covering of sail cloth. Omeros was struggling to even hold the huge ash spear that Achilles had wielded with such devastation in battle. At first the gate guards were reluctant to let them carry weapons into the palace, but agreed when Odysseus said they were gifts for Neoptolemus and suggested a detail of warriors could accompany them to the great hall.
‘Wait here,’ Odysseus told his men as they reached the tall double doors. ‘I’ll send for you when I need the gifts, but do not enter before then – whatever you may hear from inside. Do you understand?’
The muffled sound of voices and music became suddenly loud and clear as the guards threw open the doors and ushered them in. The hall was filled with the nobility of Scyros, men of all ages who had never been called to the fields of Ilium. They were seated at long tables, piled high with food and drink that was constantly being replenished by lines of slaves. These seemed to move in eddying currents through the crowded chamber, balancing platters of bread and meat on their heads, or pouring wine into the empty kraters that were waved before their faces. The hearth was ablaze with fresh logs and pumped a twisting pillar of sparks and smoke up to the ceiling. As the newcomers were led to a vacant table there was a flicker of interest from the other guests in the hall, but it passed quickly.
Odysseus glanced up see Lycomedes watching them closely from his throne. Deidameia was seated next to her father, dressed now in a sable chiton with her hair covered in black cloth. Beside her was a young girl of perhaps thirteen or fourteen. Her youthful beauty shone out like a beacon in the shadow-filled chamber, sensualised by her bright red lips and painted eyes. Deidameia leaned across to speak in her ear and the girl looked over at the battle-hardened men who had just entered the great hall.
‘I’m guessing that’s Phaedra, the girl Neoptolemus will marry tomorrow,’ Odysseus said as they sat at the benches.
Eperitus nodded. ‘And that must be Neoptolemus.’
A youth stood by the hearth, holding his krater at arms length and pouring a libation into the flames. Odysseus had not noticed him before among the movement and noise of the hall, but now that he saw the figure beyond the heat haze of the fire he could not take his eyes off him. Neoptolemus was tall and tautly muscled, and though he had short, light brown hair and was clean-shaven – Achilles had been blond with long hair and a beard – the likeness to his father was striking. It was as if the warrior who had killed Hector, Penthesilea, Memnon and countless others on the Trojan plains had been brought back from the dead. Then Neoptolemus’s eyes met his and the illusion was broken. Whereas Achilles’s perfect and terrifying anger was equalled by his capacity for friendship, hospitality, pride, honour and love, his son’s gaze was filled only with a cold and fearsome hostility, untainted by the oceanic passions that had made his father so humanly fallible.
Odysseus took a krater of wine from the hand of a passing slave and walked to the hearth, pouring a libation to the gods. Neoptolemus continued to stare at him and Odysseus returned his gaze for several moments – long enough to show the young prince he was not afraid of him – before raising the krater to his lips and bowing his eyes to the dark liquid. Diomedes and Eperitus joined him, slopping dashes of wine into the flames as they watched Neoptolemus return to a vacant chair beside Lycomedes. He looked at Phaedra and gave her a nodding smile, then at his mother, to whom he bowed his head with reverent formality.
‘He has the eyes of a born killer,’ Diomedes commented. ‘Very like his father, and yet lacking something. That lust for glory, perhaps?’
‘He has that, I think,’ Eperitus said. ‘But I don’t see Achilles’s love of life in him, that joy you could see in his eyes whether he was feasting with friends or riding out to battle in his chariot.’
‘What he lacks is compassion,’ Odysseus said. ‘I don’t trust him, but the gods have a purpose for Neoptolemus in Troy and so we must persuade him to come with us, whether we like it or not. And more to the point, whether Deidameia likes it or not.’
As he spoke, Lycomedes rose to his feet and walked to the edge of the dais, holding his hands up for silence. The music fell away and the hubbub of voices stuttered to a halt.
‘Friends, our guests have arrived. You already know the ill tidings they brought with them from Troy, calamitous news that grieves my heart and plunges it into despair. But I will not mourn the death of my son-in-law tonight. Tonight we will celebrate the greatness of his life. Eat and drink to his memory, and be thankful that the gods have saved you from a similar end on the shores of Ilium.’
There was a cheer from the crowded benches, though many of the men there would barely have remembered Achilles, let alone have known him well during his short years on Scyros.
‘You are the guest, Odysseus, not the host,’ Lycomedes warned, barely able to contain his own rage. ‘If I want a story, I will call for my bard. Until then, keep your silence!’
The hall rang with his words and no man dared to break the tension between the two kings. Deidameia looked anxiously from Lycomedes to Odysseus, and finally to Neoptolemus. As her eyes fell on her son, he rose from his chair and stared at his grandfather.
‘Let Odysseus speak. I want to hear what he has to say.’
Lycomedes looked at Deidameia, who gave an almost imperceptible nod.
‘Very well, Odysseus,’ he said. ‘Tell to us of the deeds of Achilles in the years since he left us. Stand and earn your food and wine, like the beggar you are. Speak so that Neoptolemus can understand something of the man his father was, and learn from his errors.’
Lycomedes’s insult had little effect on Odysseus, who stood and looked around at the faces that were now turned to him. There was the flicker of a sneer on some as they stared at the bulky Ithacan, with the faded purple cloak his wife had given him and his long red hair and unkempt beard. Balanced on his short legs, his muscular torso and arms looked ungainly and almost comical, though few would have dared laugh into his battle-hardened face or his knowing green eyes. And yet even on Scyros they had heard about the legendary voice of Odysseus, and despite his vagabond appearance they waited in silence for him to speak.
‘Ten years ago, King Agamemnon charged me with the task of finding the greatest warrior in all Greece – Achilles – who was said to be here on Scyros. When we eventually found him he was disguised as a girl, hiding away from unwelcome visitors at the insistence of his mother, Thetis.’ Here he looked at Deidameia, who held his gaze firmly. ‘She had foreseen that her son would die if he ever went to Troy, and thought that if she could prevent him going he would live a long and prosperous life. But, goddess though she was, she could not change her son’s nature. Achilles sailed with us to Troy in search of glory, and became the fiercest of all the Greeks, the bane of every Trojan who ever faced him in battle.’
He went on to describe the long years of the war, from the first skirmish on Tenedos to the great battles that had rolled back and forth across the plains of Ilium, all the time focussing on the part played by Neoptolemus’s father. With far greater skill than Eperitus’s stumbling efforts with Deidameia in the walled garden earlier, he recalled in detail Achilles’s grief at the loss of Patroclus, his return to war in the magnificent armour presented to him by Thetis, and how he took his terrible revenge on Hector. Though he briefly mentioned Achilles’s refusal to burn Hector’s corpse, he made clear how his anger was ultimately tempered by compassion for Priam. He followed this with vivid accounts of his slaying of Penthesilea, queen of the Amazons, and soon after, Memnon, leader of the Aethiopes. As Odysseus described each victory he pointedly did not look at Neoptolemus, speaking instead to the rest of the crowded hall and winning the audience over to his tale, so that they shouted in anguish or triumph as he described Achilles’s various trials. Indeed, he did not need to look at Neoptolemus to know that his icy expression was slowly thawing, encouraged by the crowd around him, and that a fire had been kindled in his heart that blazed in his eyes, to the exclusion of everything else in the great hall.
Finally, Odysseus came to the death of Achilles before the Scaean Gate. The room fell into a hush as he described the shadow of Apollo falling across the closely packed soldiers, and the hiss of the poisoned arrow as it found Achilles’s vulnerable heel and brought him down.
‘And so your father lived and died, Neoptolemus,’ Odysseus said, turning at last to the young man seated beside Lycomedes. ‘But as your mother and grandfather have already guessed, we did not come here solely to bring you news of Achilles’s death. You’d have heard eventually, and the message didn’t need two kings to carry it. No, we’re here at the will of the gods: an oracle has predicted that Troy won’t fall until you’ve taken your father’s place in the army.’
At this, the hall broke into uproar. Men leapt to their feet, sending shouts of denial up to the rafters. Neoptolemus stood also, while Odysseus advanced to the hearth and pointed at him through the heat haze.
‘You are your father’s heir, Neoptolemus. Will you honour his memory and return to Troy with us, or will you bring shame on him and yourself and stay here?’
‘Guards!’ Deidameia shouted, standing and moving to the edge of the dais. Several armed men emerged from the shadowy corners of the hall and surrounded the visitors. ‘I said I would not stand by and let you rob me of my son, as you did my husband. Neoptolemus will marry Phaedra tomorrow, and in time she will be the mother of his children. He will not follow his father to Troy, but stay here and inherit the throne of his grandfather. Do you understand?’
Her last words were to Neoptolemus, who remained silent, though there was rebellion in his eyes. Then Diomedes moved to Odysseus’s side.
‘Time to let go of your mother’s chiton, lad,’ he said, raising his voice over the commotion. ‘The gods have said Troy cannot fall without you, and so you must decide between hardship and everlasting glory, or comfort and obscurity.’
Deidameia waved the guards forward. Spear points were pressed against Odysseus and Diomedes’s stomachs, while the cold edge of a sword was lifted to Eperitus’s throat.
‘Take them back to their ship,’ she ordered, ‘and if they resist, kill them.’
As they were forced towards the doors of the great hall, pelted by pieces of bread and meat from the surrounding nobles, Lycomedes had to pull Neoptolemus back into his chair.
‘Wait!’ Odysseus cried. ‘Wait! By all means send us back to Troy, but not before Neoptolemus has received the inheritance his father left him.’
Such was the power of his voice that the guards stopped and looked to Deidameia for what to do. She turned to Lycomedes with doubt in her eyes, but it was Neoptolemus who answered.
‘What is this inheritance?’
‘Beware the gifts of Odysseus,’ Lycomedes warned. ‘They snared your father, and they will snare you.’
Neoptolemus ignored the old man and stood.
‘Speak, Odysseus.’
Odysseus pushed the spear point away from his stomach and looked Neoptolemus in the eye.
‘There’s one thing I haven’t told you about, though you may have pondered it already – the fate of Achilles’s splendid armour. After your father’s death, Great Ajax carried his corpse back to the Greek camp, while I fought off the Trojans that pursued us. That gave us both a claim to the armour, though Ajax’s was by far the greater because he was Achilles’s cousin. But Ajax had also angered the gods with his arrogance, and to get their revenge they told me to stake my claim on the armour and deny it to Ajax by whatever means possible.’
Here he paused and looked at Diomedes and Eperitus. Eperitus knew that the guilt of Ajax’s suicide was still upon him and must have realised what was coming next.
‘And so I cheated – I bribed some prisoners to declare that I was the one the Trojans feared the most, and by their false testimony Achilles’s armour was awarded to me. That evening, Ajax lost his mind and killed himself, just as the gods had known he would. Ever since then, even though I was driven to what I did by the command of the immortals, I have known the armour could never be mine. And neither could it ever have belonged to Ajax. It has only one true heir – you, Neoptolemus.’
As he finished, he called to a slav
e and spoke to him in a low voice. The slave ran to the doors and opened them. A moment later, Polites, Eurybates and Omeros entered, carrying their burdens. Polites laid the large wooden box on the floor and threw open the hinged lid, revealing a flash of gold that caused a stir among the onlookers. At a nod from Odysseus, he pulled out the red-plumed helmet and lifted it in one hand above his head, turning in a half-circle so the whole hall could see it. The mirror-like finish of the gold blazed in the light of the hearth and torches and earned a gasp of disbelief. After sweeping the platters and cups from a table with a crash, he placed it down and plucked out the tin greaves, holding one in each hand as he showed them to the hall in the same fashion. Laying these beside the helmet, Polites returned to the wooden chest and retrieved the bronze cuirass that the smith-god had shaped to exactly mimic the perfect torso of Achilles.
‘By all the gods!’ Lycomedes exclaimed as Polites raised it high above his head.
Neoptolemus brushed past his mother and moved to the edge of the dais, his mouth wide open.
‘Behold, your father’s famed spear,’ Odysseus said, taking the weapon from Omeros’s grasp and raising it in both hands above his head, before leaning it against the table where the rest of the armour sat. ‘This was the spear that killed the great Hector and countless other Trojans of great renown. Yet all these things are as nothing compared to this.’
He beckoned Eurybates forward and untied the strings that held the sail cloth in place. It fell to the floor, revealing the great shield of Achilles in a flash gold and silver. A shout of wonder echoed through the great hall as every eye seized on the shining disc. Its boss depicted the Earth and Sea, surrounded by the Sun, Moon and stars. Four more concentric circles showed different scenes from human life, the figures within moving and dancing and fighting as they had done ever since Hephaistos had first animated them. At the sight of the shield, Neoptolemus stepped down from the dais and skirted the hearth to be near it.
‘These are mine?’ he asked, looking fleetingly at Odysseus before returning his gaze to the collection of armour.